Rumor Has It
by aapenname
Summary: Rumor has it that the Born King lives among them. When did Arthur first hear of the Born King and what did he think?


_Age 7_

"I would that I could. Honestly, but I simply cannot."

Lucy put her hands on her hips, a sure sign that she was digging in for a fight. She fixed her determined stare on Father Bennet. "He's old enough to attend grammar school. We 'ave the money to pay for his schoolin'."

Father Bennett sighed and, from his peripheral, Arthur could see the man glance at him. Arthur pretended not to see or hear them, instead studying a long papyrus banner that had strong, dark swoops and swirls scrawled across it. He'd seen some like it in the market. Lucy said it was cursive script, but she'd never learned how to read or write it.

Father Bennet's words cut into his thoughts. "My child, you know it's not the money... It's how you _earn_ the money."

Arthur watched with a detached interest as a faint blush raced up the priest's neck and into his cheeks and ears.

Lucy now folded her arms across her chest, pushing the swells of her bosom further up and out of her corset top, causing Father Bennet to clear his throat and look away.

"Judge me if you want, Father. I've sinned a plenty. But he's just a boy and he should have the opportunity to learn. It's not like he'll grow up to be a courtesan lady. There's no family farm for him to work. If he can't read or write and has no labor skills, we won't be able to get 'im an apprenticeship. We may as well turn him out on the streets now to get an early start cut-pursing or worse." Lucy took a deep breath, trying to calm her voice that had been rising with each word. "Now, it's been a good long while since I paid attention, but if I remember anything about preachin' you're s'posed to help the widowed and the orphan. My boy is an orphan!"

Father Bennet looked at Arthur and this time the pity in his eyes came through clearly. The Father was a kindly looking man who probably was only ten or so years older than Lucy, maybe halfway through his third decade. He had dark hair barely speckled with the first hints of gray and blue eyes bracket by light wrinkles that showed he smiled an awful lot for a man of the cloth.

"If it was up to me, Lucy, I'd do it in a heartbeat, but the rest of the town would throw a fit. He has no parents to speak of and he spends his days in a… a house of ill-repute. Even if he's never done anything wrong, the stories he could tell… I can't. I'd lose all my other students."

Lucy was not backing down. "But didn't the good Lord himself say that if a shepherd had one hundred sheep and one went off on his own, the _good_ shepherd would leave the ninety-nine and gladly save the one that's wandered off? Father, I'm tellin' you. One of your sheep is wanderin' off by the edge of the cliff. I'm beggin' you to save him."

Arthur barely smothered a laugh. Lucy was layin' it on extra thick. But he didn't say anything. He _really_ wanted to learn how to read the swirls. But it wouldn't be the first time he couldn't do something because of where he came from, so he knew better than to get his hopes up.

Father Bennet shook his head with a small laugh. "You say you haven't been to church in years, but you remember parables better than my flock that comes every week."

The priest ran a hand over his face and looked toward the ceiling as though he expected audible divine advice. After a moment, he looked back down.

"Tell you what. If you can get him to the rectory before sun up on the first day of the week's end, I can make sure he at least knows his numbers and letters. Then he can do the chopping, mopping and sweeping so nobody can complain."

Lucy squealed and clapped. "Thank you, Father. You have no idea how much this means to us. Bless you!"

"And you, too, my child. Because you will not find everyone as easy to persuade as I."

"That was easy?" Arthur whispered. Lucy shushed him and ushered him out of the small chapel.

 _Age 13_

"Oi! Arthur! Awake with you!"

Arthur startled as Lucy's slender fingers fiercely shook him from his sleep. Nothing but nightmares but it was an even greater fright to wake so abruptly. "What's wrong? Has one of the callers hurt someone? I can handle it, I can."

He usually didn't sleep until the house was clear of all gentleman patrons, but he had not been feeling well and Lucy had pecked at him until he'd agreed to retire to bed early.

"No! It's you that should worry," she said, shoving his trousers at him. She'd been such a mother to him that neither blushed that she might see him in such a state of undress. "The Black Legs are coming and they're taking more lads to send to the Nords."

The words sent shivers of fright down Arthur's spine and he sprang from the bed. The King sent a royal decree saying that being sent to live with the Vikings was an honor, but very few who went ever sent word back and none of the nobles were ever granted this 'grand honor.' Over two years, the pool of boys of age had dwindled greatly and the commoners quickly made out that their sons were being sent away either to be soldiers who would eventually fight their own countrymen or to be slaves. Both fates were dreaded.

Lucy rushed over to the window, throwing it open. "Out with you already!"

Bare-chested and with his trousers barely hitched, Arthur slipped out of the window and up onto the roof. As he climbed, using the plank boards they'd nailed to the sidings near his window specifically for this reason, he could hear Lucy rustling around the room, presumably straightening to make it appear as though no one had slept there that night.

With more than a little bit of effort, Arthur reached the edge of the roof. A hand reached down and gripped his wrist and he barely muffled the yelp of surprise.

"Come on with you!" Backlack muttered as he continued to pull. Wet Stick grabbed his other wrist and they pulled him up and over, scraping his bare stomach, but he didn't complain.

"Fancy meeting you here", Wet Stick whispered with a grin.

"Har, har," Arthur grumbled, as he lay down softly on the roof. "So where're you supposed to be?"

"My sister's husband's taken ill. I've gone to help with his shop until he's back on his feet, I think," Backlack answered.

"Do you even have a sister?" Arthur asked.

Backlack shook his head with a smirk.

"What about you, Stick?"

"I have gone to apprentice with my uncle, the blacksmith, who lives two ports over."

"Nice," Arthur admitted. "That one can be used for years without raising eyebrows."

"What about you, Art?" Lack asked. "Everybody knows you don't have any family and nobody'll give you an apprentice on account of you being a—you know."

"A bastard," Arthur filled in.

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Not your fault," Arthur said. "Lucy always tells 'em I'm taking one of the ladies to a doctor a town over. The doctor here won't treat them on account of them—you know, keeping company. So we just insist they're having really bad lady problems and that I had to help them get there as quick as possible. Plenty of ladies and lady problems happen every month."

"Oh yuck, Art!" Stick whined.

Arthur shrugged.

Time passed and they lay on the roof, studying the stars and slapping at mosquitoes.

"It's so stupid that we have to do this all the time," Lack muttered. "What kind of king gives a way his subjects?"

"A stupid one," Stick agreed.

Arthur hummed. "He's probably just trying to keep the peace. The Vikings are powerful. I see them when they come to visit the ladies. Kinda scary lookin'."

Lack shook his head. "But Vortigern is the king of _all of England_. He has _all_ of England at his command. We could fight off some bloody Vikings instead of givin' 'em people, our _own people,_ to turn into soldiers and slaves!"

Stick sat up on his elbows. "I heard he trades the boys the Black Legs take in exchange for the materials for that tower he's been buildin'. Supposedly it's magic or somethin'."

"Like real magic?" Arthur asked, interest piqued.

Stick nodded. "Yeah. It's supposed to make him so powerful no one can ever defeat him. Not even the Born King."

Arthur frowned. "What's the Born King?"

Stick and Back both whipped their heads around to look at him as though he'd grown a third eye or something.

"You've never heard of the Born King?" Stick asked, eyes round like Arthur had admitted to never hearing of Londinium, itself.

Arthur rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged self-consciously. "Well, if it's not something that specifically interests Father Bennet or the ladies, it's slow to get to me."

Backlack and WetStick talked over each other, both eager to tell the story. Years ago, King Vortigern had murdered both his brother and his brother's wife in order to gain the crown. He'd meant to kill his nephew as well so no one else would have claim to the throne, but the boy had somehow escaped and was believed to be living somewhere in the kingdom, waiting until the day he was strong enough to challenge his uncle for his rightful place.

"Do you believe that?" Arthur asked.

Lack shrugged. "It would explain why King Vortigern's desperate enough to give away thousands of future soldiers in order to gain more power _right now_. He needs to be powerful enough to fight the Born King. My dad said the old King could fight whole armies by himself, so his son probably can, too."

Arthur frowned. "So what's he waiting for? He knows he's supposed to be king, right?"

"How the hell would you not know you're supposed to be rightful king of England?" Stick asked with a laugh.

"Well it had to have happened when he was too little to know what happened," Arthur said. "Otherwise, why wouldn't he have just gone back to the palace and told everybody what happened and become king himself?"

"Oh."

Backlack and Stick both blinked for a moment before Stick spoke up. "I bet that poor bastard's out there somewhere and has no idea. He's probably a page or a cobbler when he should be the bloody king. Imagine that."

 _Age 15_

"Apprenticeships are for respectable young men from law-abiding homes who have a bright future ahead of them. Your boy is none of those."

Arthur stood off to the side trying to look honest and earnest. Lucy dragged him through this every few months when a new smith of any type set up shop in town. She always hoped to get to them before they could catch word of Arthur's past. But as always, it appeared she was already too late.

"I promise you my Art is quite bright and almost never gets into trouble. If you could find it in your heart to look past the circumstances of his birth and raising, I promise you would find a hard and honest worker."

In truth, with no prospects in sight, Arthur had set off to his own devices over a year ago. He, WetStick, BackLack, and a few others had set up a fairly lucrative cutpurse racket. The very thing Lucy had feared but it made ends meet. At this point, Arthur wasn't even sure an apprenticeship was worth it, but he would never say as much to Lucy who had her heart set on making him a 'respectable gentleman.'

"Miss, I can't look past those circumstances," the new cooper, a bear of a man, said, setting down the metal hoop he was using to craft his latest barrel. "If I take him own as an apprentice, I am acting as his sponsor and publicly declaring that I will vouch for his morals and actions past, present, and future. A boy his age living in a brothel day and night? I'd sooner vouch for a fox living in a hen house. Who knows what trouble he's stirred up? I'm surprised he's not already left some lass in a family way."

Lucy's lips pinched and a slight blush of anger tinted her cheeks. "I bid you not to speak of him in such a way. He has done nothing to deserve it, save be born. He's stirred up no trouble and if anyone would know to avoid a sire-less child, it would be my Art. Please, he just needs a chance. Then maybe he can go to the outer borders where no one knows him and make something of himself."

The cooper sighed. "I can't. I really can't. I'm new in town and it wouldn't take much to sink me if people thought I was associating with the wrong sorts. But I've heard your boy is a scrapper. Lot of fight in him. Maybe if you send him to that guy… George? Maybe he can learn to protect himself and when he goes he can sign on to protect a landowner."

Lucy's lips pressed into a thin displeased line. She already knew that Arthur had been training for years with George.

"Good day, sir," she said in a clipped tone as she exited the shop. Arthur followed her without a word.

 _Age 19_

"Art, have you heard the rumors?" Lucy sat on a cushion, darning stockings. She paused for a moment to look up at him.

"Which rumors?" Arthur mumbled as he focused on trying to add up his day's take plus that of all the ladies. Now that he had a bit more muscle and training with Kung Fu George, he and his crew had added a protection racket to their bag of tricks, but that also meant he had to portion out the Black Legs' a cut for turning a blind eye. Only then could he figure out their budget for food and drink for the month and how much would remain for repairs and upkeep on their inn and anything the ladies might need. Although mostly self-taught with some help from the good Father, Arthur had a head for numbers. He imagined that in another life, he'd probably have made a good bookkeeper's apprentice which would've thrilled Lucy to pieces.

Silence fell and he looked when he realized Lucy was waiting for his attention. Once she had it, she looked back to the stocking she was mending.

"About—about the sword being revealed. They say the Lady of the Lake magicked it away so that it would only reveal itself once the time had come for the Born King to take the throne."

Arthur rolled his eyes. He'd been hearing about the Born King for over six years. He'd been intrigued by the idea at first. A hero hidden amongst them, waiting to spring. But after years of watching families lose their sons, Arthur was less than impressed by the man's lack of word or deed. "Yeah. I heard about the sword. Belonged to the old King. What of it?"

"I was just wondering what you thought of him. The Born King?"

Arthur scratched a few more figures on to his paper. "I think he's a coward. An absolute coward. People are sufferin' and he could do something. If he exists, he should do something. If he's real, these are his people."

Lucy didn't say anything for a long moment as she stitched and Arthur double checked his figures.

"Maybe he doesn't know. The Born King. Maybe he doesn't know."

Arthur put down his pencil and turned towards Lucy and sighed. "Maybe. I actually said the same thing to Lack and Stick the first time they told me about him. But that makes it even worse. Everybody's hopin' for someone who has no idea anybody is waitin'."

Lucy seemed oddly troubled by the idea. Her forehead wrinkling in a way that she usually reserved for more immediate problems.

"Art, if I tell you something, will you promise not to get mad?"

He tilted his head, finding the timid voice odd given how often Lucy steamrolled over clergy and laymen alike to get what she wanted or needed. "How could I ever get mad at you, Luce? You're my best girl. You've always done right by me."

She nodded her head slowly, but chewed at her bottom lip. She seemed so concern that Arthur slipped from his chair to sit on the floor next to her cushion.

He put a finger to her chin tilting her face up to him, a nostalgic reversal of a move she'd pulled on him countless times. "What's eatin' at you, love?"

She took in a deep breath and let it back out, before looking him straight in the eyes. "Your mum… She wasn't one of us. Not a—not a prostitute."

Arthur stiffened, both at the harsh word and the meaning, and his hand dropped into his lap as he stared at Lucy. "What do you mean? Of course, she was. That's what you told me. That's what everybody told me. She was one of your ladies and found herself in a family way and she died givin' birth to me. You didn't know her family so you raised me yourself."

Lucy shook her head slowly and dropped the darning into her lap. She peered up at Arthur with big eyes. "I never met your mother. We… we found you in the river. That river flows from the palace. You were already three or four summers' age. And the cloth you were found in. It was nice. Really nice. So lovely Agnes made a dress from it. Maybe…"

"Maybe what?" He asked even though he already knew where she was going just as he knew he didn't want to hear it.

She hesitated. "Maybe… maybe you're the Born King?"

Arthur barked out a harsh laugh that bordered on hysterical and contrasted the burning anger racing through veins as he climbed to his feet. "What fairy tales have you ladies been listening to, huh? I am _not_ the Born King. No more than you're the bloody virgin Mary."

Lucy flinched.

"You might be," She insisted climbing to her feet as well.

"I'm not."

"If you were—"

" _I'm not."_

"But if you were—"

" _If I was_ that would mean the current king wanted to be king so badly he risked treason to murder the reigning King and Queen and sent their son, the rightful heir, literally down the river hopefully to die. If _I_ am that lost kid, he sent the rightful king of England to live in a brothel. How far do you think he'd be willing to go to keep anybody from finding that out?"

"Pretty far, probably. But you were just sayin'… people are sufferin'. _You_ said the Born King should do something. Maybe you should get tested. What's worst that could happen?"

Arthur whirled on her and stalked forward. She yelped in surprise and took steps backward until they both reached the wall and she was pinned there by his hulking height.

"What's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen? The king could have me killed to protect his crown! That's what could happen. Is that what you want, Lucy? Me to go off to my death to prove a point?"

He was yelling so hard it actually made his throat hurt, but he couldn't help it. It wasn't until he heard a sob that the anger... the _fear_ broke and let him see what he'd done. He looked down at Lucy, who was shivering like he'd never seen. And he was deeply ashamed. He'd put men out on their arses for far less than this.

He took a deep breath and took a big step back, letting Lucy move from where he'd trapped her.

"I'm sorry, love. I'm so sorry. I never shoulda yelled at you like that. You know it's not me."

Lucy nodded, but he could still see her hands tremoring as she smoothed first her hair and then her dress.

"I know. You're just upset. We'll forget about it. I would never want you to get hurt. I just—I always want the best for you. I guess, I got carried away."

He watched in silence as the woman who had cared for him, even at her own sacrifice, for as long as he could remember walked away and they both pretended she wasn't crying.

Arthur didn't know if he was the Born King, but he'd never felt more like a bastard and a coward.

 _Age 25_

As time passed King Vortigern grew more and more desperate to find, and kill, the Born King. Every man in the village who was anywhere near Arthur's age was being rounded up and forced to try to pull the sword from the stone. After, they failed they were branded and released.

So far, Arthur had been able to escape the Black Legs sweeps for potential candidates. No matter what Lucy had told him, Arthur refused to buy into the idea. There wasn't a whore's chance in a nunnery that he was the Born King. But as long as he hadn't been tested he could dream, fantasize, in that very deep part of his mind that he would never give voice to that maybe he was meant for more than thievery and chicanery. So many doors were forever closed to him because of where he was raised, but the audacity to imagine jumping from a brothel to the palace?

Things had been going along smoothly which meant a muck up was inevitable. A run-in with the Vikings had brought the Black Legs down on Arthur's crew.

"Show me your mark" the Black Leg demanded.

"My mark, sir?" Arthur parroted as though he had no idea what the man was talking about.

The soldier rolled his eyes. "Your mark to show that you've been tested."

"Oh… well, I haven't had a chance. I've been out at sea on a boat. In fact, that's where I'm headed now and I have to go or they'll leave—"

"Well, then they'll leave," the Black Leg said with a smirk. "Let's go get you tested."

Arthur's stomach dropped.

Well, hell.


End file.
